What happened
On August 2, 1947, the Avro Lancastrian “Star Dust” of the British airline BSAA was flying from Buenos Aires to Santiago, Chile, with six passengers and five crew members. Four minutes before its scheduled landing, the radio operator sent a Morse code message ending with the word “STENDEC,” repeated twice. The tower in Santiago did not understand it, and the plane disappeared. Despite an extensive search, no trace was found, which for decades gave rise to theories ranging from sabotage to abduction by a UFO. In 1998 Argentine mountaineers came across engine fragments on a glacier below the summit of Tupungato, and in 2000 an Argentine Army expedition found more parts of the aircraft and the remains of the victims, pushed to the surface by the glacier.
Witnesses
The radio operator at Santiago airport, who received the last messages; the wreckage was discovered by Argentine climbers and soldiers.
Explanations and hypotheses
Analysis of the wreckage indicated that the crew, flying high through the jet stream – poorly understood at the time – overestimated their ground speed. Believing they had already crossed the crest of the Andes, they began their descent and struck the slope of Tupungato, where snow and ice buried the wreckage. The meaning of the word “STENDEC” has never been explained – it may be an error in sending or receiving the Morse code.
Explained The phenomenon has a widely accepted, down-to-earth explanation.
More: Wikipedia (en)